Iraqi forces in Nineveh worked out by bombs, corpses removal

A member of the Iraqi Army’s 9th Armoured Division walks among debris at the yard of a destroyed building at the frontline in western Mosul, Iraq June 17, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi forces and relief teams feel they are worked out by efforts to remove leftover explosives and retrieve civilians’ corpses in Nineveh, commanders and officials were quoted saying.

Alghad Press website quoted Abu Gaafar al-Shabaki, commander of the 30th brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces, saying Tuesday that PMFs are “exhausted on a daily basis” due to explosives left over by Islamic State militants in the eastern areas of Nineveh.

“Some had to leave work (with the forces) and others were injured as IEDS exploded while they were dismantling them,” he said.

According to Shabaki, “IEDs require government and international efforts because they are too many”, adding that “returning civilians also suffer from them”.

Meanwhile, Nineveh Province Council member, Hossam al-Abbar, told the website that civil defense teams are “racing against time” to retrieve what is left of civilians’ corpses in the Old City district of Mosul before year’s end.

He urged civilians to report any dead body finds.

Abbar complained that civil defense teams have not received their payments from the government.

Iraqi forces recapture Mosul from Islamic State militants early July, before announcing the defeat of the group from all Iraqi territories early December.

Hundreds of civilians were killed and buried under the rubble in the Old City, with the deaths blamed on Islamic State boobytraps designed against the assaulting forces and sometimes on airstrikes and artillery fire from Iraqi troops and the allied international coalition.